All 5 Uses of
founder
in
The Scarlet Letter
- The founders of the greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of Salem might here be traced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at periods generally much posterior to the Revolution, upward to what their children look upon as long-established rank.†
p. 28.6
- ...reading the names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves,
p. 29.1foundered = failed; or sank
- The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.†
p. 45.2
- She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snailshells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in New England; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore.
p. 164.4 *foundered = sank
- The fathers and founders of the commonwealth—the statesman, the priest, and the soldier—seemed it a duty then to assume the outward state and majesty, which, in accordance with antique style, was looked upon as the proper garb of public and social eminence.†
p. 215.5 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(founder as in: a founder of the company) someone who establishes or starts something
-
(2)
(founder as in: peace talks foundered) to fail or break-down
or:
to physically sink below the surface or fall -
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
A less common meaning refers to someone who manufactures things made from cast metal.